SCOTTISH FACTUAL DEVELOPMENT FUND LAUNCHED

SCOTTISH Screen have announced that a major new fund worth £200,000 to develop Scottish companies involved in factual television production has been launched.
The Scottish Factual Development Fund is a partnership between Scottish Screen and Channel 4 which will benefit four companies in Scotland who can demonstrate they have slates of factual projects in various stages of development, focussed on major television networks and international documentary markets.
Steve McIntyre, Chief Executive of Scottish Screen sees the Scottish Factual Development Fund as an important new tool to build businesses working in factual production in Scotland. He said: "Scotland is traditionally thought of as the home of documentary which was pioneered by the father of documentary John Grierson and we are keen to see the production of factual programming of the highest calibre continue and grow. To be successful in this genre it is important to build companies with a sound financial base and sound business strategies. The importance of this initiative is its support for companies with ambition to develop their work at the UK and international level and to incentives real business growth."
To qualify for the scheme companies must be based in Scotland and have a proven track record in network factual production. The scheme is not project specific but is based on the submission of convincing plans for how significant investment will help to build up the companies' network presence in this area of programming.
The chosen companies will receive around £50,000 support for one year to develop their work and take it to market. The selection process will be undertaken by a panel of industry professionals in the area of factual and documentary work, early in 2002.
Factual programme production in Scotland is estimated to be worth in excess of £10 million per annum. The development fund has been introduced as part of Channel 4's wider 'Creative Cities' strategy, which is designed to increase the broadcaster's contribution to the development of creative businesses in the UK's regional cities. (CD)